Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

I’ve been looking around for some builds, and wasn’t really able to find many on these Forums, especially ones which weren’t heavily Confusion Based, which is kinda annoying after the massive Confusion nerf.

So I was wondering, could you guys please link some builds in the comments which you thought are good builds which are worth mentioning. PvE, WvWvW, tPvP, any builds, as long as you think they’re good, put the link in the comments

Thanks everyone.

Not trying to flame, but you obviously didn’t look that hard haha…Check out the “List of Builds” sticky, there are TONS of builds there

It’s probably better for you to go through and look at the weapons and utilities that fit your play style best, look for traits that enhance those skills, and develop your own build. I’ve reset my build a few times in the last week to try different things. My current build focuses on reflection and phantasm support. I knew I wanted sword and focus for my main weapon set, so I took the cool down traits for both weapons. The focus trait also adds reflection for focus skills, so that is part of my “reflection” theme. Since I had to put 20 points into Inspiration for the focus trait, I looked at what else that line offered and saw some phantasm support opportunity. I went down the deep end and spent 30 for the heal on shatter, and 30 in Illusions for the shatter on self (emergency distortion and fastest cooldown on popping more phantasms.) That left 10 points which were already spent into Dueling for the one handed sword cooldown.

This is not a crit based build, and my gear is NOT ideal for this. I’m using the armor and trinkets from the karma vendor at Melandru’s temple for now. I’m just trying out this build, but so far is it a LOT of fun.

Here’s the final tally on what traits I spent:
30 Inspiration
Vengeful Images – Grants retaliation to Phantasms
Phantasmal Healing – Phantasms grant regeneration to nearby allies
Phantasmal Strength – Phantasms to 15% more damage
Glamour Mastery – Glamour skills recharge 20% faster
Warden’s Feedback – Focus skills reflect projectiles. Reduces recharge of focus skills by 20%
Restorative Illusions – Heal a small amount when you shatter illusions

30 Illusions
Illusionists Celerity – Illusion-summoning skills recharge 20% faster
Illusionary Retribution – All shatter skills inflict confusion
Shattered Strength – Shattering illusions grants you one stack of might per illusion
Compounding Power – 3% more damage for each of your active illusions
Phantasmal Haste – Phantasms recharge 20% faster
Illusionary Persona – Shattering illusions creates the effect on you as well

10 Dueling
Critical Infusion – Gain 5 seconds of vigor on delivering a critical hit
Blade Training – +50 precision while wielding a one-handed sword or a spear. Reduces the recharge of sword and spear skills by 20%

I don’t have a high crit chance, but it’s not a crit based build. I could add more by changing my gear, and I may if I decide to stick with this set up. This is more a gimmick, but it works well for me so far. I chose Sword/Focus and Greatsword for my weapon sets. I also loaded Mirror for my heal (reflect theme, and fast recharge) + Blink (escape tool if needed) + Feedback (reflect theme, and the reason to take glamour mastery) + Null Field (for condition control + another ethereal field.) Mass Invisibility is the elite I run. Those are for WvW. I swap Blink for Portal and/or Veil when running with a zerg and we need one or the other.

For PvE, I swap Blink for Signet of Inspiration, and Null Field for Signet of Midnight for the random boons + longer duration. I also sometimes swap Mirror for Ether Feast for a more reliable heal if I’m getting heavy pressure from not a lot of ranged attacks.

With sword+focus I’m able to lay down a Light Field and use a Leap finisher within it for retaliation stacking. This worked VERY nicely against the flamethrower Molten Alliance veteran mobs in the living story content. They melted like butter on a hot tin roof. If I’m getting too many conditions, I can pop iWarden on top of that same Light Field for some condition removal. The rotation usually goes like this: locate the ranged mob in a group first and pop iWarden. About the time iWarden is about to stop spinning, pop Temporal Curtain to keep the reflect going. If iWarden isn’t ready by the time curtain wears off, pop Feedback, then pop iWarden after the next spin from the current iWarden. Pop curtain again, rinse repeat. Usually 2 iWarden will rotate enough to keep reflect up 100% between spins using Curtain, but fights don’t generally last that long in my experience… Players are a bit smarter, so you have to maneuver more and pay more attention to timing, but most players don’t expect to shoot themselves in the face when they see Temporal Curtain pop up in front of them

For melee mobs, I lay down Temporal Curtain at my feet, use the sword clone, then leap (which adds several stacks of retaliation in short order) then pop iWarden for the extra damage and regen support. In a pinch I’ll shatter for distortion, or use mind wrack for spike damage to finish off a foe, but this is not a shatter build.

Just learn to think of how you want to play or what your goal is with the character then look for the things that help make that happen “better.” Developing your own builds can be lots of fun…